buyers rule #1: good prints always sell.

I think fashion editors look at collections as concept albums. Buyers, on the other hand are looking for hit singles (especially in this climate) . It’s not that buyers don’t have the patience to listen to the whole record, it’s just… well you need something to sell. Because I was a buyer for a long time, I have a hard time looking at the shows without a bottom line in mind, I think this is why I get grumpy and impatient. Where’s the hit? Where’s the goddamn single?

Erdem  has an album full of singles this season, it’s insane. It’s like the Steve Miller band or something.

Erdem Fall 2009 photos from style.com

Sweater girls

I have been watching a lot of good movies lately, trying to make up for the string of blockbusters I rented over Christmas (Step Brothers, Baby Mama, Wanted) but really I’ve been trying to regain the respect of my neighborhood video store guys who had lost faith in me during this dark period. And so I’ve been renting a lot of Italian neorealist films and finally getting around to Yasuhiro Ozu.

I rented Late Afternoon and from a colour perspective it was a knock out; there are a lot of those Gourmet magazine blues with red popping up somewhere, but also the inclusion of a bright margarine yellow. There is an amazing moment when a girl is walking towards an apartment building in a red sweater, and for a brief second in the background another girl is walking down the apartment staircase in the exact same sweater but in the margarine colour. Incredible.

Below, images from the film and a great Chris Ware poster and here are the closest sweaters I could find to the Ozu ones.

not that green, the other green

I was looking at the sartorialist this morning and I noticed a couple of shots of this fantastic shade of green (see gloves and jacket below). Even though I love the mustards, chartreuses, and puces that have been around lately- this colour doesn’t seem nearly as over-exposed as all those sickly bodily fluid colours. Hunter green? British racing green? Forest green? Jag green?

Photos from The Sartorialist

You have to be careful with this colour though. You can very quickly get into “genuine british pub” territory.